A Select Clientele
by merlinmercury
Summary: Bela is three-quarters demon by the time Abaddon hauls her back up to the surface—and the human quarter was never going to make a lot of difference anyway.


Bela is three-quarters demon by the time Abaddon hauls her back up to the surface—and the human quarter was never going to make a lot of difference anyway.

"You've dealt with Crowley before," the red-headed demon says, arms crossed over her chest. She looks at Bela the way Bela's always looked at rich, impressionable people. She can appreciate that kind of approach to a business relationship.

"Indeed," Bela confirms, raises an eyebrow just to show that she's not going to kowtow easily—not even to the big bad who raised her and renewed her old body for her to use (appearances are important when one is setting out to take advantage of old connections, after all).

"And you would be able to track him down?"

It's a question Bela doesn't even dignify with an answer; she was brilliant in life, procuring items and customers alike, and she's had countless decades in hell to perfect her business model. It had begun as a bribe—stolen knives and other weapons in exchange for a reprieve from the torture; it had quickly grown into a lucrative (in hell's currencies, of course) trading operation.

Bela has spent hundreds of years finding the rarest knives and magic-imbued swords in hell, the most hazardous cursed objects that existed in that realm, even stockpiling holy water and salt, which are about as easy to come by in hell as truly innocent souls.

Of _course _she can hunt down one lousy demon, big-shot or otherwise.

"You'll be wanting this, for when you find him," Abaddon pulls out a long silver blade and passes it to Bela, the light glinting brightly off the smooth planes of it.

It's a beautiful weapon, and Bela longs to touch it, to stroke the edges just to see how sharp it is, but she knows better than to indulge herself. She is more demon than human nowadays, after all; a blade which can kill angels and demons alike is not to be toyed with.

Bela could lunge forward and bury the angel sword in Abaddon's flesh, watch the fireworks spark as the knight dies inside that pretty meat suit—but she knows she will not, and Abaddon knows it too. The value of a powerful ally who appreciates her skills is too great to sacrifice for an unnecessary power play, or a moment of bloodthirsty pleasure.

Besides, the way Abaddon's eyes trail over Bela's form suggests that pleasure isn't out of the question, even if murder is.

What Bela hadn't entirely been expecting—though in hindsight she really should have done—was for the Winchesters to be at the centre of hell's political drama. Holding Crowley prisoner?—The bastard was simultaneously the unluckiest and most fortunate demon on the block with a fortress like that put up around him. And Dean... well, it's interesting to see Dean again, to say the least.

"Bela," Sam Winchester breathes, evidently surprised to see her up and about, though still significantly less so than an ordinary person would be upon reunion with a dead person. By now resurrection is a pretty everyday thing for the brothers, she knows that.

"Sam," Bela nods in his direction before turning sharper eyes on his older brother. "Dean."

Dean shifts uncomfortably, reaches one hand down for what Bela expects is probably a flask of holy water.

"Don't bother," she says, and he pauses the movement. "I'm not a demon,"—it's only three-quarters a lie. In truth, the holy water would smart terribly; burn like a more diluted solution of acid than it would on her fully-demon acquaintances, but burn nonetheless. She'd like to spare herself that.

The look Dean shoots her says he knows she's not all human either. Says he remembers.

It was an unfortunate coincidence that led to them meeting in hell; Bela had been commissioned by one of the higher-ups, a demon named Alistair, to gather all the worst tools that hell had to offer for use on a newcomer, the breaking of whom was of the utmost importance. She had arrived, rucksack filled with all the makings of a truly unimaginable bad time, only to find that she recognised the poor soul strung up on Alistair's rack. She'd done her best not to feel any responsibility for what Dean would go through. This was hell, after all, and she was simply making her way however she could.

It wasn't the last time she saw him, though. Over the decades she'd tried to tune out those particular screams—one set of raw lungs amongst billions, and yet somehow bloodcurdlingly identifiable, familiar. What was most disconcerting, though, was when they stopped.

Two burly demons had interrupted her on a delivery run for a relatively small job, bringing a few drops of djinn venom to a demon who specialised in psychological torture. They'd blinded her and carried her away, and by the time her eyes had regrown she had found herself tied to a rack somewhere so deep in the pit that there was no air, only the tangible, choking waft of fresh pain and slow, endless despair.

The eyes that looked upon her were cold—colder even than she remembered Alistair's being. She knew, recalled, that they were green in colour, but she couldn't see it as they drilled into her, more like sharpened stone than any kind of human flesh.

"Bela Talbot," Dean greets her with a sneer, twirls a long jagged-tipped dagger effortlessly in one hand. "For once, it's actually convenient to see you."

The things she'd sought out for Dean had been the most creative items yet. The cursed rabbit's foot that had first brought their paths to a crossing seemed as commonplace as knives and forks next to the cursed items Dean asked her for. They weren't just blades and chemicals, but herbs and body parts too; Dean knew about all kinds of supernatural creatures, knew how to use their assets against others. Bela brought him all the djinn venom she could come across, all the siren saliva and arachne fangs and phoenix ashes. She brought Dean wraith blood and watched one day as the soul of a man drove himself right over the edge of sanity over and over again, writhing and sobbing and begging without Dean even lifting a finger, just left alone with a steady intravenous drip of the toxin and his own magnified terror.

Bela had always been an expert in manipulating not only others but herself, and as she worked for Dean, saw what he was doing, what he was capable of, all she allowed herself to feel was relief that he never turned is instruments against her.

So it's haunting, seeing him here, now. He's softened again, or at least he's become so used to projecting his former style of humanity around Sam that his mask has fused on. Bela doesn't really know what the Winchesters have been through since she died, but she knows Sam hasn't had it easy either. She never actually laid eyes on him in hell, would never have been allowed to venture that deep into the basement even if any part of her had wanted to. He looks much older than she remembers, more changed by time than his older brother. He looks weary now.

It's not that she could ever forget what Dean had been like all those decades ago in hell, strolling through the racks he was lord over, a cruel smile contorting his face. It's just that it's easier to remember what he'd been like _before _that as well, when they'd stepped around each other and struck out in bout after bout of snarky, competitive foreplay. Part of Bela, or maybe all of her, kind of wants both sides of him.

She strides forward until she can lean in and ghost her lips over the stubble on Dean's left cheek.

"Still handsome," she breathes into his ear, as her hand slips the holy water flask out of his back pocket. She steps away, then holds up her prize for him to see. "And still a delight to fool."

Dean scowls. "_Bitch_."

"You like it."

When Bela retires to the bathroom to text Abaddon the location of the place (really, mobile phones are much less conspicuous than talking into a bowl of blood, as so many demons still like to do) she finds that Abaddon already knows where and what the Winchesters' bunker is; a headquarters for an organisation she decimated back in the mid-twentieth century. Bela decides not to prod at the fact that Abaddon should really have been able to do this job on her own.

Sam leaves to get food, and really, it's the perfect opportunity to make a move.

It could be the perfect opportunity to make several different types of moves.

Bela breaks the salt lines on the window sills, smudges a couple of devil's traps as she comes across them. Bela can still cross these barriers, but it feels like she's wading through wet cement.

She's scratching through a sigil that's been painted on the wall when Dean finds her.

The first she knows of her having been discovered is a heavy hand on her shoulder. She's a keen listener, curses herself for being beaten, but if anyone's capable she supposes it's a hunter like Dean.

She lets him pull her around, push her back up against the wall, his forearm like a steel bar beneath her chin. She's stronger than she used to be—thanks to the demon in her—but there's no reason to waste that element of surprise by escaping his hold when honestly, she's not having a bad time.

She breathes hard and quick, her mouth half-open, lips dropping further apart when she notices the way Dean's eyes fixate on them. She lets loose a soft noise, teasing.

Dean grunts and presses his arm in harder, beginning to crush her windpipe.

Bela retaliates with soft hands, toying with the hem of his shirt, an edge of sharp fingernail against skin and the hard muscle underneath.

"What are you doing?" Dean asks, as though he doesn't know.

Bela chuckles, licks her lips.

"You know where I've been," she says. "You know how much I want to have a little fun now that I'm out of there. We never did get around to that hate sex, you know. It was a tragedy."

Dean uses his free hand to wrench Bela's away from his body.

"Mm," she says. "Just like that. I know you want it rough. I can take it."

Dean, poor soul, is obviously at war with himself. There's the part of him that hates Bela, genuinely wants nothing to do with her or anything she might remind him of—but there's also the part that, however much he may disapprove, is undeniably hungry for an outlet, for a taste of the power and control that he used to have, unbound by those moral shackles for ten years of fierce, brutal _freedom_.

Now, back with Sam and whichever other people are left for him to feel responsible for, Dean is less himself, buried under layers of shame and confusion and disappointment; the sadist in him once again cloaked beneath the masochist he was raised to be.

"We have time," Bela reminds him. "But not if you're going to stall _all day_. It's a shame; you were so no-nonsense when I saw you last."

As expected, the acknowledgement of what went on between them in hell finally does it. A heavy hand closes over Bela's mouth, a heavy body pressing right up against her so that she can feel every cold inch of the wall on one side and every hot inch of Dean Winchester on the other.

Bela struggles just a little, lets him feel like there's a fight to be won before letting him believe he's won it.

Dean's hand moves down to her neck, rests there like a quiet threat as his lips take up its previous task of covering her mouth. He kisses hard and dirty, a kiss from a darker realm than this earth—a place of scrambling madness and no hope and even less mercy.

Bela nudges her leg forward, pushes the top of her thigh up between Dean's and rubs it firmly there.

Hands encircle her waist and then she's being lifted, more thrown than carried, over to an old-looking armchair.

A window shatters loudly.

Then another.

Abaddon strides towards them, all done up in Kevlar and fiery orange curls, gun swinging across her body from its strap like it's a fashion statement, some kind of mass-murder themed necklace. She's beautiful, eyes flashing black momentarily, lips redder than blood and curved up in a toothy smirk. She makes her way towards Dean, who's drawing his demon-killing knife and pointing it warily at her as he stands his ground.

Bela's honestly at a loss as to who she should watch. She's already hot and bothered, lips bruised and bitten, so she just rearranges herself slightly on the chair, leans back and lets her legs fall open.

"What am I interrupting here?" Abaddon asks, in a tone that says she already knows. What it doesn't seem to communicate in any way is anger.

Her eyes roll all over Dean with a heated hunger, and Bela wonders whether anything's gone on there before, whether Abaddon has successfully appealed to the shadowy part of Dean that would get off on holding a demon down and _taking_—or maybe letting it all go, letting himself be defiled and pretending he hadn't wanted every moment of it. With Abaddon, it would probably be the latter—Bela can imagine her pinning him down, tying him up, taunting him; scratching him with her long painted nails and smearing him with her painted lips.

Bela would probably give what's left of her soul just for the chance to watch.

But Abaddon's eyes don't stay on Dean alone—no, a moment later they're boring into Bela, much the way they had done earlier that day, only with less restraint, less effort given to disguising the lust and more to relishing in it. That flaming look alone pushes the air out of Bela's lungs in a hard pant.

Dean evidently notices the exchange, because he shoots glares between them both.

"I don't know if you're wanting to kill her or fuck her," he grumbles in Abaddon's direction, "but can you go and do it somewhere else?"

Abaddon laughs.

"Now, Dean, why would I _kill _such a sweet little thing? Especially when you've already got her laid out so nicely. Doesn't it make you want to press bruises into that smooth skin? Bring tears to those clear eyes?"

Dean says nothing, a silence that Bela knows speaks volumes.

"Why don't you show me all the things you want to do to her?" Abaddon advances another few steps, and Dean doesn't retreat, doesn't recoil even when it leaves him within stabbing distance of the knight. She flings his demon knife away with the wave of a hand.

"You're sick," Dean tries to protest, and it starts out strong but trails away to a hollow mumble.

Abaddon extends a hand and trails fingertips across one of his cheekbones, down to his throat.

"Oh, yes," she purrs, takes one final stride in to bring them nose to nose. "But you wouldn't have us any other way."

When Dean finally moves, he goes towards her.


End file.
